continue. But meanwhile it is all working to Reagan's advantage. Rea- gan has not only encouraged and ben- efitted from the new mood; his cam- paign has made him the personifica- tion of America. To suggest that any- thing is wrong with him is to run down the country. In his appearance at Bowling Green in late September, Reagan said, "Uncle Sam is a friendly old man, but he has a spine of steel." ACTUALLY, the Mondale cam- .n. paign had been going through some internal reëvaluation of its strat- egy, and a fair amount of controversy, for some time before the debate. The first manifestation of the reëvaluation was the speech that Mondale gave at George Washington University, in Washington, on September 25th, in which he set forth in a sharper manner than before what he saw as the stakes in the election. Essentially, by about mid-September several of Mondale's campaign aides had become unhappy about the way the campaign was go- ing, and felt that Mondale still did not have a message that was working. They subscribed to the advice that Patrick Caddell, the pollster, had been gi ving: that the stakes had to be made clearer, that Mondale had to stay on the "high mora] ground," and that such was Reagan's personal popularity that anything that came across as a personal attack on him would work to Mondale's disadvantage. While the fact that Caddell-who earlier in the year had been advising Gary Hart and may have done Mondale more damage than any other strategist, and who has a history of tension with Mondale- was advising the Mondale campaign emerged in the press only after the debate, Caddell had actually been ad- vising the campaign on an on-and- off basis since August, and played a major role (including meeting with Mondale) in the rethink that led to the George Washington University speech. Some of the Mondale high command had felt it important to keep Caddell's role as secret as possible, for a mixture of reasons: some found it hard to admit that Caddell's advice might be needed; and Caddell, who can be temperamental, has a tendency to talk to the press about his role. So the deal was: Cadden would advise but the press wasn't to know. Yet such things are impossible to keep secret, and eventually the word was out. Cad- dell, sound as his advice may have been, would not have prevailed to the extent he did had he not had so many allies within the campaign; among them were some people who had ini- tially had some misgivings about bringing him into the campaign at all. But some key figures in the cam- paign were unhappy with the paid me- dia, with what the campaign's polling was turning up (it did not square with other data they saw), with the fact that both Mondale's and Ferraro's "negatives" were rising, and, most important, with Mondale's failure to get his message across. Among this group were Bob Beckel, the campaign manager; Tom Donilon, the deputy campaign director and a longtime friend of Caddell's; John Reilly, Mon- dale's law partner and a key adviser; and Paul Tully, the national political director of the campaign. The resis- tance came from a very few people, who found it difficult to admit that a change was needed or that Caddell was needed, or who feared erosion of their own authority. Such things pre- occupy campaigns-particularly cam- paigns in trouble-while the candidate is trying to get through the day. The object of much of the internal critics' unhappiness was Richard Leone, who had been brought into the Mondale campaign in the summer to be in charge of "the message"-and to su- pervise polling, speechwriting, adver- tising, and issues. This was a tall or- der, and Leone, an intelligent man who is a close friend of Johnson's and was brought in by him, had had little experience in national politics. J ohn- son, for all the campaign's troubles with Caddell in the past, had enough respect for his mind to invite him to advise the campaign-but the subse- quent outbreak of near- war between some top campaign aides and Leone put Johnson in an un- comfortable position. It was a memorandum by Ii Caddell that guided some of the initial thinking this fall-that Reagan should not be directly attacked and the stakes in the election should be made clear- but his advice was only sporadically followed. Mondale himself was aware that things were not going well for him in the early weeks of the cam- paign. A new memorandum, prepared by Caddell in mid-September, setting forth again what Mondale should do and what he should avoid, impressed several within the campaign-and also Mondale himself. It was essentially adopted-or so several people in the campaign thought-at a meeting, 135 which Mondale attended, at Mondale's law offices on the Saturday before the George Washington University speech. But Leone kept resisting: thus, the first part of the speech was about foreign policy, which had been originally scheduled, and the second part was a setting out of the strong new themes as dictated by the new, or adjusted, strat- egy. This part of the speech was what several of Mondale's campaign aides had hoped his opening speech, in Mer- rill, Wisconsin, on Labor Day, would be more like. Bureaucratic arguments continued-through the first debate and up until the second one. After a large struggle, Beckel took over super- vision of the paid media. Caddell played a large role in designing the media and the strategy for the first debate (the debates were under Leone's jurisdiction), but his involvement was resisted by some all along the way. And though many people in the cam- paign thought it was a settled matter that Caddell would play a major role in the second debate, there was a resis- tance to this, too, and roadblocks were erected, in the final days leading up to the debate. But Caddell ended up playing a large role in it after all. All this was going on while Mondale was getting ready for the most important, and potentially decisive, moment in his political career. Meanwhile, Mondale, pleased with the positive response to his George Washington University speech, began to incorporate chunks of the new ap- proach in his stump speech. ("This election is not about jelly beans and pen pals. It is about toxic dumps that give cancer to our children.") He con- tinued to try to draw the contrast between the two parties, emphasizing the Republican platform, and he continued to talk about arms control. However, Mondale's natural incli- nation was to go after Reagan (he has always been a scrappy partisan), and some- times the fancy advice he was being given-on how to go at Reagan with- out appearing to go at him-fell before the natural instincts of the man on the stump. Thus, on Monday, October 1st, in a speech in New Brunswick, New J er- sey, where Rutgers University is situ- ated, Mondale, first stipulating that he was sure the President had "good in- tentions" about arms control, and that he did not doubt that "the President is for peace," went on to cite instances